Within the crowds of people the man’s eyes rest upon a pretty girl on the revolving roundabout, which was powered by steam. He follows her movements as the machine revolves and moves to the place where he thinks she will get off when it stops. She decides to have a second ride and he asks her if she has enjoyed her ride. Hardy describes the young girl as someone who has come from the country to the city, and has never seen steam circuses before. She has come to work for Mrs. Harnham as a servant. Mrs. Harnham has recently married a rich wine merchant but is finding life very lonely. Within the scene which Hardy describes perhaps there is a lustful longing for the young girl, maybe here Hardy is thinking through his own unhappy marriage situation and looking for an escape.
Hardy then goes on to describe Mrs. Harnham as a lady who lives in a house in the remote corner of the square. The scene changes to describe this second woman (Mrs. Harnham) and the conversation she is having with her butler. At the end of the conversation, she decides to go and look for the young girl called “Anna”. Her husband offers to go with her but she decides to go alone. In the market square, she soon finds Anna and demands that she comes home. The account of Mrs. Harnham and her conversation with her butler could be Hardy’s own reflection of his marriage to the vicar’s daughter in Cornwall. Perhaps it was a reflection of Hardy’s own wife and her conversations with her father.
In the confusion of the crowd the young man puts his hand out to help Anna, but by accident touches Mrs. Harnham’s hand and clasps her fingers. He thinks that it is Anna’s hand but Mrs. Harnham does not tell him of his mistake, in fact Mrs. Harnham enjoyed the experience. Mrs. Harnham and Anna then return home. Mrs. Harnham asks Anna searching questions about the young man and his actions, in particular she asks his name. “It is Charles Bradford of London,” Anna replies. Mrs. Harnham appears to be very jealous of Anna at this point. The man introduced by Hardy as Charles Bradford of London is again depicted as a man caught in a dilemma — Hardy himself looking for a happy relationship yet not finding it within his own circumstances. Mrs. Harnham and Anna could be seen as Hardy’s own wife and a woman with whom he is having a secret relationship.
The next morning Mrs. Harnham goes to a “week day service in Melchester cathedral”. The young man Charles Bradford is there again but he does not recognize Mrs. Harnham. Mrs. Harnham however thinks deeply of him. The introduction of this short account is again possibly Hardy reflecting with a guilty conscience of his own marriage to the clergy mans daughter. Perhaps Mrs. Harnham herself is unhappily married — Hardy’s conscience reflects on his own relationship.
In the days that follow Charles Bradford meets up with Anna six or seven times, over the few days in the following week. Their relationship continues and grows in the weeks and months ahead. This relationship of seduction continues by the uneducated young woman, perhaps Charles Bradford, who should have known better allowed her to continue. He writes to her, but receives no reply the reason being that she can neither read his letters nor reply. Eventually he does receive a reply. Hardy describes how Anna had received the letter from the postman but, that she had to take it to her mistress out of great difficulty and ask her to read it to her.
The story continues to explain to how Edith Harnham wrote the letters for Anna, as though Anna herself was writing them.
Replies came from Charles Bradford whom Hardy now introduces as Raye. The deceit of letters to and fro continues for a number of weeks. Mrs. Harnham suggests that at least Anna puts (signs) her own name on the letter, but Anna refuses to do this and says “I think I should do it so bad. He’d be ashamed of me, and never see me again”. Within this paragraph of the account perhaps we are reading about the complexities of Hardy’s own life style. Whether these events actually happened to Hardy and his wife we do not know, but again Hardy seems to be wrestling with his conscience.
On one occasion when Anna was away from Mrs. Harnham’s house a letter arrived from Raye, and Mrs. Harnham replied to this letter directly in this letter, Hardy quotes, “Edith had replied on her own responsibility, from the depths of her own heart, without waiting for her maids collaboration”. The “luxury of writing to him would be known to no consciousness but his was great, and she had indulged herself therein”. The relationship between Raye and Anna continues and at the end of the story we read that Anna is pregnant and is soon married to Raye. The marriage of Raye and Anna is perhaps Hardy’s attempt to resolve a difficult situation in his own life. At least in the marriage Raye proves to be honorable and perhaps Hardy wishes to resolve his own unhappy situation.
It is my understanding that each character in the story is deceitful and has been deceived by the others in one way or another. Mrs. Harnham is dissatisfied with her own life, married to the elderly wine merchant, and deceives Raye by composing the letters because she feels lonely. Anna is deceitful because she allows Mrs. Harnham to write the letters to Raye, but never tells him that they come from Mrs. Harnham.
Raye on the other hand has not given Anna his real address, and the letters, which she sends, go to a different postal address. It is only when Raye realizes that Anna is pregnant that he corrects the situation. The letters written by Edith under the pseudonym of Anna give Raye an added burden to live with; he married someone who he did not love. The confusion between the writer of the letters and the recipient of the letters is underlining Hardy’s own confused state of mind.
Possibly the least responsible was Anna because she was the least educated of the three; but this does not excuse her from responsibility.
Perhaps Mrs. Harnham was to blame at the beginning and middle of the story because of her deceit, but at the same time she was very unhappily married to the wine merchant. Hardy continues to underline Mrs. Harnham’s deceit but along with this he has great sympathy with the woman because of her unhappy marriage. Raye in his marriage to Anna seems to be unhappy because he has now married an uneducated woman.
The final paragraph in Hardy’s account summarizes the situation in which Raye now finds himself “simultaneously with Edith’s journey home Anna and her husband were sitting at the opposite windows of a second class carriage which sped along to Knollsea. In his hand was a pocket book full of creased sheets closely written over. Unfolding them one after another he read them in silence, and sighed.
“What are you doing, dear Charles?” she said timidly from the other window, and drew nearer to him as if he were a god. “Reading over all those sweet letters to me signed “Anna,” he replied with dreary resignation”. Although Raye had been an honest man in his marriage to Anna, he still wishes within his heart to be with Edith, he retains the letters as written by Edith although they were under Anna’s name. Again this underlines the confusion in Hardy’s own life.
Hardy’s handling of the plot; the story, which Hardy writes in “On the Western circuit,” begins with an open and friendly description (atmosphere) of the city of Melchester. The reader is drawn into the scene by a careful description of the time of day, “late afternoon, early evening,” and into the architecture of the cathedral city. It is as if we were walking with the young man from the cathedral close to the market square where the description of the steam powered fair and crowds of people who are using it. By extended description we follow the young man into the activities of the fair ground noise and throbbing atmosphere. The reader finds himself as an active observer to the point when the young man approaches the young girl on the fair ground roundabout. Suddenly the activities change and the central characters are described. Charles Raye is described as “stuff-gownsman, educated at Wintonchester”. The image of the young girl Anna is one of innocence, simple ness and that of purity. The second woman Edith Harnham is depicted as a woman of high standing but unhappily married to an older wine merchant.
In viewing the developing plot through each of the characters eyes, Hardy illustrates the lifestyle of different groups of people, the educated traveler, the poor working class and the rich upper class. Through different aspects of description and the activities of the characters Hardy builds up the suspense and the question upper most in the readers mind must be, “What is going to happen to each character?” and once it seen that Anna is pregnant, “Where will Charles loyalties end?” At the end of the story we read that Charles marries Anna and is caring for her in her pregnancy, but still his heart is with Edith as he re-reads the letters he had received under Anna’s signature. Even with the final full stop of the story we could ask the question “What might happen next?”
Hardy’s skill in creating the characters; in sketching the scenery of the cathedral city and the visitor who is viewing the deserted cathedral, Hardy depicts an educated and thoughtful man in the person of Charles. As Charles turns from the cathedral close to the market square this image remains. Even in the observation of the young Anna, Charles is depicted as an honest man. It is only later in the story when he has the letters supposedly from Anna delivered to a false postal address that any deceit is seen to unfold within his character. In describing Anna’s enjoyment in the Fair Hardy is seeking to portray a young innocent girl. The fact that she has come from the country to work in the city of Melchester underlines this. Perhaps with this innocence Hardy adds a certain degree of support in the readers mind for Anna.
In contrast Hardy’s description of the rich Edith is one of a scheming young woman. However even here Hardy seeks to evoke some sympathy for Edith, as we see here as a rich but lonely woman. As the story unfolds a question upper most in the readers mind must be “What will happen to Edith Harnham, at the end of the story?”
The interests of the setting; in a skillful description of the cathedral in it’s deserted grandeur, the activities of the market square and the crushing of the crowds are skillfully used by Hardy to set the scene. The fact that we can see by the description which is outlined by Hardy describing the steam powered machinery in the fair takes us back to a different age. Even the description within Edith’s house being one of man servants and maid servants relays the setting of a previous generation.